Released by: Avenue of Allies
Release Date: December 9th, 2011
Genre: West Coast AOR
Links: https://www.facebook.com/Coastlandride
Line Up:
Markus Nordenberg – Lead & background vocals, add. keyboards
Anders Rybank- Guitars, keyboards, bass & programming
Mikael Bohlin- Guitars, keyboards & programming
Tracklist:
Act Of Faith (One Million Reasons)
Wait
On Top Of The World
Second Chance
Made Up My Mind
Sandra
Save You From Yourself
Lodestar
Strange Confusion
Jericho Falls
Nail Me To The Cross
The self titled Coastland Ride album was released back in 2003 through the German label AOR Heaven and received some solid acclamations back then, and now some 7 years later the 3 members Mikael Bohlin (Keyboards and guitars), Anders Rybank (keyboards, guitars and bass) and Markus Nordenberg (lead & background vocals) return with a new record and on the heels of signing with Avenue of Allies for their sophomore release “On Top of the World”. Their style is your typical West Coast AOR/Pop with some nice melodic touches in places something very typical of this genre.
Is interesting to still see the West Coast AOR genre bouncing out there and still drawing a fair fan base, if you remember back then in the 80’s the movement was led by such acts like Michael Mcdonald, Toto etc. Now mainly that genre is kept alive by bands overseas who still have solid songwriting and still do it because they love the music. Maybe is time for more bands here in the states to jump on board huh? I don’t know food for thought I guess.
These three guys have conducted a nice soulful chain of tunes led by a sparkling sound production underneath. Opener “Act of Faith” is a crisp fully lead Westcoast model of any of their earlier songs from their debut. The underneath layering of “Made Up My Mind” picks up the pace a bit and shows itself strong midway through. Street Talk guitarist Sven Larsson can be heard on solo guitar on almost half of the songs and it adds a more melodic touch to the songs he contributes in. The systematic tempo in “Save from Yourself” sounds different then any other track, a nice change of pace adding some variety on the record. The strongest tune comes way via the industrial keyboard led and vocal layers of “Jericho Falls”, a superb track that adds more strengths to this nice effort by Coastland Ride.
In addition to this new record Avenue of Allies is also releasing the remastering of the band’s debut record, the re-issue of the band’s debut also includes three bonus tracks in the form of the unreleased songs “Jenny’s Heart”, “The World Is Not Enough” and “Pitch Black Ride” from the original recording sessions. A good boastful songwriting featuring the typical traits of the genre, all along with some sharp production marks this new album release into the “solid” category for fans of the genre.
Written by Denys
Ratings Denys 7/10
About Author
